When Fences Make Bad Neighbors

Rare wildlife could be a casualty of border security efforts

Posted: 01-Jun-2008; Updated: 06-Jun-2008

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Once common across south Texas, today only about 100 ocelots survive.

America's "little leopard," the ocelot, is in grave danger. Fewer than 100 of the endangered animals still roam the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Now the Department of Homeland Security wants to build a 700- mile-long fence on the U.S.-Mexico border that would cut through and destroy much of the ocelot's remaining thorn scrub habitat and prevent the little cats from swimming across the Rio Grande to mate.

Environmental Defense Fund opposes the wholesale fencing plan and we're proposing alternatives to improve both wildlife habitat and border security. Many local officials and private landowners are concerned that the fencing plan would destroy or isolate large areas of the 130-mile habitat corridor along the Rio Grande that the federal government paid millions of dollars to protect. A sanctuary for rare wildlife, this area now supports a thriving ecotourism industry in one of the poorest parts of the country.

Other ways to improve border security — and wildlife habitat

In other areas along the border, we are helping develop environmentally sound approaches. These include:

• Clearing the river corridor to remove dense thickets of nonnative salt cedar, and replacing them with native vegetation, which can improve sightlines and bolster the Border Patrol's ability to enforce the law.
• Creating backwater channels (riverine wetlands), which can help impede illegal border crossings while providing significant benefit to birds and wildlife.

Local Homeland Security officials have been receptive to such alternatives, and a bi-national demonstration project is underway. Along the Lower Colorado River near Yuma, Arizona, we are working with the Yuma Crossings National Heritage Area, the Mexican conservation group ProNatura Noroeste and various federal and state agencies to show how restoration and border security can be compatible.

"Similar restoration techniques and bi-national cooperation could work well in many other border areas," says Mary Kelly, co-director of our Land, Water and Wildlife program.

Unfortunately, in its rush to build the multibillion dollar border fence, the Department of Homeland Security has decided to waive all federal environmental laws. We and others are opposing this waiver and will now test its constitutionality in the courts.

From the June 2008 Solutions newsletter [PDF].

Learn more about endangered Texas ocelots.